HOA planned to assess every owner $6,000 for roof repairs. Here’s how residents reacted
Kansas City Star
By Judy L. Thomas
03 December 2018
Faced with a budget shortfall and leaking roofs on some homes, a
Johnson County HOA president decided drastic measures were necessary to
tackle the problem.
She devised a plan: Require each homeowner to pay a special assessment
of $6,000, due by Feb. 1. The assessment amounts to nearly three years’
worth of dues. Homeowners pay $180 per month for items including lawn
care, snow removal, parking, fences, roofs and pool.
Owners in the Lincolnshire subdivision in Mission, a community of
townhomes along 51st Street near Interstate 35, are livid about the
action, which some say they only learned about in recent days. It’s yet
another symptom, they say, of a homeowners association marred by
mismanagement and a lack of accountability.
“I’ve told them over and over that they need to be more transparent,”
said Steve Tennyson, whose daughter, Sara, lives in a townhome he
bought while she takes graduate courses in physical therapy at the
University of Kansas.
I’ve repeatedly asked to see the financial documents
“I’ve repeatedly asked to see the financial documents but haven’t
received anything. How can we support something like this if we can’t
even see where the money has been going?”
But board president Ellen Hoerle, who took over last summer when the
previous president left amid criticism of poor accounting practices,
told homeowners the action is necessary to repair the roofs, gutters
and chimney caps on many of the homes. The HOA comprises 33 units in 10
buildings.
The issue is one of many The Star has examined in recent years
involving the homes association explosion and the problems it has
spawned. Today, more than one in five people in the U.S. live in a
homeowners or condo association, and more than 60 percent of new
housing starts are in HOAs.
home associations wield far more power than homeowners realize
Among The Star’s findings: home associations wield far more power than
homeowners realize, and some struggle with accountability. And with
many subdivisions now approaching three decades in existence, there’s a
growing number of HOAs that haven’t saved enough money to pay for
projects and needed repairs.
Lincolnshire board members debated the special assessment proposal at a meeting on Thursday.
“It got pretty heated,” Sara Tennyson said afterward. “There were people who immediately became angry and wanted to speak.”
The proposal failed on a 3-3 vote — the HOA treasurer resigned before
the meeting started and didn’t attend. But homeowners know the problems
are real and the issues must be addressed.
Hoerle — who owns a townhome in the HOA but lives in Minnesota — would not discuss the concerns with The Star.
“At this time, I would like to keep the continued discussions that we
need to have as a community out of the public arena,” Hoerle said in an
email to The Star on Saturday. “If the homeowners who contacted you had
the best interests of the entire community at heart, as well as their
own, they, too, would understand that.”
previous president and her partner, the HOA’s property manager
Lincolnshire homeowners say their problems were compounded by the
previous president and her partner, the HOA’s property manager. The
owners said they repeatedly raised concerns about questionable expenses
and asked to see the financial records but that their requests were
ignored.
“There are serious accountability concerns,” said Cale Errebo, a
homeowner who served briefly as treasurer from June through September.
“My biggest concern is that there’s no recourse. It’s mind-blowing that
there’s no state or local governance over these little communities.
if there’s overstep or noncompliance by the board, there’s almost nothing you can do about it
“You call the secretary of state, the district attorney, the local
police. They don’t know, they don’t care, there’s no enforcement,
there’s no oversight, there’s no regulation. It’s all self-governance.
And if there’s overstep or noncompliance by the board, there’s almost
nothing you can do about it.”
Errebo said the former property manager was a one-person show.
She wrote checks to herself
“She wrote checks to herself,” he said. “She got a monthly fee of $800
and then gave herself $500 a month to take care of the pool when it was
open.”
After a siding project, he said, “the more we kept digging, the more we found.”
the property manager was giving herself 10% of the costs
“The workers weren’t licensed and bonded, the property manager was
giving herself 10 percent of the costs and said she was only required
to keep documents for one year.”
He said the HOA was “a hot mess.”
“It’s like living in ‘Bizarre World,’” he said. “We get them out, try
to be transparent, try to be neighborly, try to move on. Then I’m
alerted about this $6,000 assessment that they’re trying to ram
through.”
One of his neighbors, he said, is 70 years old and has cancer.
“How’s she going to pay her mortgage and do chemo and then pay $6,000
to somebody?” he said. “We’re told we can go get loans. What if we
can’t get loans? Are they going to put liens on a third of the
properties here?”
In the days leading up to Thursday’s board meeting, angry notices were posted on the mailboxes and heated emails were exchanged.
“The Board President/Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to
the homeowners,” one owner wrote to residents. “Until I see a more
comprehensive thought out plan as well as bank statements and expenses
I am not in favor of ANY assessment.
“You don’t demand additional money from homeowners when you have never
shown accountability for any expenses since the takeover six months ago
or when bids are all over the place. This is unbelievable.”
Another homeowner called on Hoerle to resign.
“We need all of our board members to be living here on the property in
the state of Kansas, not Minnesota,” she wrote in an email to
homeowners, including Hoerle. “Therefore, we just need you to step down
and to stop talking so much. We need all financials on a website
immediately. I requested the financials from you in July, August and
September and have not gotten them.”
Errebo said in a note to residents that he was “well aware that there are dire needs in Lincolnshire.”
“There may even be need of additional funds,” he said. However, he
added, “Having a proper, well-researched and feasible plan in place to
fund the immediate needs of homeowners is the job of the board and it
doesn’t exist.”
Those attending Thursday night’s board meeting at the Sylvester Powell
Jr. Community Center said Hoerle increased the amount of the proposed
assessment from $6,000 to $6,500.
Some residents raised concerns about a lack of transparency.
“One lady said we want to see a cash flow to see what our money is
being spent on before we invest in anything else,” Sara Tennyson said.
“They gave out a paper at the meeting that said what was spent from
June 7 to August 27, but that’s the only thing we’ve seen.”
Now that the plan failed to pass, no one is sure what will happen. And Hoerle isn’t commenting.
“These roofs need to be fixed,” Sara Tennyson said. “But we’re
wondering why we have to assess all the homes at one time. Can we do
the worst ones first and not scare people with $6,000?”
And homeowners still want to know how their dues have been spent.
“Our argument is, if we can get some of that money back, we wouldn’t
have to pay so much,” Tennyson said. “That’s why we want to see some
sort of plan for how we’re going to pay for all of this.”
Errebo said he’s learned a valuable lesson.
“You buy a place in an HOA, you’re gonna get a pool, your lawn taken
care of. Sounds great,” he said. “But it really all depends on your
HOA. There’s good HOAs and there’s poor HOAs.”
He said he hopes for a positive resolution.
“I think ultimately what will come out of this is maybe some community
involvement and people not being kept in the dark anymore,” he said.
“But the homeowners and the board will need to work together.”
One thing, though, is certain, he said.
“I’ll never live in an HOA again.”
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